I sure hate when work gets in the way of fun!!

Thanks, Brian, for your kind words. Unfortunately, I've been really busy at work recently and haven't been able to play much. That should change next month, hopefully.

Very nice Dusty. Also enjoyed reading the conversation in the comments. I think you are doing a great job; very tasteful and very pretty. More please. :)

Thanks so much, John. I've been playing this one a lot recently. It's kind of cool to find a song that is not played by every other dulcimer player under the sun.

Still loving this Dusty, thanks for posting

John

You're a prince, Dusty. Hugs from me!

Old hymns love you, too, Robin. And so do the rest of us! Thanks for listening.

A nice old hymn and you've played it beautifully, Dusty. (I love old hymns!)

Cheryl, I'll be honest that I am somewhat limited as a bluegrass flatpicker. Yes, I worked on my technique enough to be able to play some of the standards up to bluegrass (warp) speed, but I could never improvise at that speed. At one point I started pre-writing solos for some of the standards and practicing those solos so that I could take a couple of verses in a jam and pretend to be improvising.

I "discovered" the dulcimer when I was looking for some ideas for a fake, pre-written solo for "Whiskey Before Breakfast" and found Stephen Seifert on YouTube. My jaw dropped both at his virtuosity and also at the sound of the instrument. But as I got to know the dulcimer more I was drawn to its lack of pretense, its simplicity. And I decided to learn to play in such a way as to let the beauty of the instrument and the beauty of the music take center stage. I try to stay out of the way.

My new model isGeorge Harrison's guitar solo in the Beatles' song "Something." You can almost sing it. It fits the song so well and yet does not overwhelm in terms of fancy licks or fast playing. It is simply "tasteful." I would like to learn the dulcimer well enough to add something tasteful of my own to each song such that people will be thinking "what a beautiful song" and "what a beautiful instrument" and not even notice the musician.

Dusty,

I loved hearing about your guitar and mandolin playing. My experience was very similar,except all my early training was classical. I switched to bluegrass and although I can fly on the guitar and mando when I need to I found myself feeling really worn out by the end of a jam session and not enjoying myself....became a lot of work. Watching one musician try to outdo another is what often seemed to happen and it got old really fast. Now I only play at one old-time jam where we sing a lot and play old time tunes and enjoy the music at the pace it was originally meant to be played at before theblue grassers got hold of it. I do love BG music but my real love is turning out to be old time and I find myself slowly switching camps. I like hearing the music for what it is and don't want a whole bunch of extra fancy notes to muck things up. Just my 2cents! :)

Thanks, Sam and Garey for comemnts. If a song of mine offers anyone the inspiration to play on their own, then I consider it asuccess.

DT ... not only a fine old hymn, you've done it in a calming, soothing style. Good 'listening' music.

Sue and Glynda, thanks so much for your encouragement. Sorry I didn't acknowledge your comments earlier; I was on a brief family trip.

Dusty, this is Great ! more-more Beautiful !

Dave, Cindi, and Patty, thanks so much for listening and commenting.

Cindi, I used to play guitar and spent some time learning to flatick in order to play bluegrass. I switched to mandolin for a while and was doing the same thing. But I just got turned off of the obsession with playing lots of notes as fast as possible. I learned some tricks about how to do that, but too often those extra notes and extra speed add nothing to what a song or musician is trying to say. I vowed that I would learn to play slowly when I took up the dulcimer, and rather than looking for that really cool chord, I am now interested infinding thatone extra note to play for some harmony. This has all taught me to pay more attention to the melody and chord structure of a song rather than try to jazz everything up and "fancify" everything. I would like to think that I am learning to play with more feeling, too.

Very pretty Dusty. I love hymns. Thanks for sharing. I hope you'll post some more videos

Talented!

I just think that's inspirational.

Thanks, Cindi. That Ry Cooder album was one of my favorites for a while back in the day. There is still a lot there that I didn't capture in my arrangement.

Thanks for the encouragement, Cheryl. Probably everything I do sounds "guitar-ish" since I played guitar for a long time before I ever discovered the dulcimer. And of course, I learned this song from recordings by two guitarists. Thanks for listening.

Very nice...I don't think you missed a note! I really enjoyed your arrangement and the way you use hammer on's etc. Almost sounds guitar-ish, but better! :)